The festival, in its 28th year, is the largest commercial beer competition in the world. A total of 234 different breweries won either gold, silver or bronze medals in 90 beer categories covering 145 different beer styles.

Wiseacre won a bronze medal for its Tiny Bomb in the German-Style Pilsener category (75 entries). This was Wiseacre’s first year to compete at GABF.

Brothers Davin and Kellan Bartosch opened Wiseacre on Broad Avenue in 2013. Tiny Bomb, available on draft and in cans in the Memphis area, is one of the brewery’s two year-round beers, along with Ananda IPA.

“It’s great to be recognized for something that you have worked so hard on for so long, especially by my peers, the greatest beer judges in the world. Pilsner is among the most difficult styles of beer to produce and we are glad to be honored in this way. I almost cried,” brewmaster Davin Bartosch said in a press release.

Added Kellan Bartosch: “With Firestone and Russian River being the other medalist in the category as two of the most highly acclaimed breweries in the country, it says a lot about the internal admiration for Pilsner among brewers. Craft beer drinkers often stick to mega hoppy IPAs or big stouts, but external appreciation for tasty lower ABV beers is on the rise and Tiny Bomb made here in Memphis can now be considered a leader of the pack on a national scale.”

Meanwhile, Yazoo captured the bronze medal in the Wood- and Barrel-Aged Sour Beer category (65 entries) for its Cherry Deux Rouges, part of the Nashville brewery’s Embrace the Funk series. The medal is Yazoo’s fourth overall, having won twice for its Hefeweizen and once for Sue.

The final Tennessee winner was Chattanooga’s McHale’s Brewhouse, which won a gold medal for its Scottish Pride beer in the Scottish-Style Ale category (51 entries). It’s the first GABF win for McHale’s Brewhouse.

The sample glasses at GABF have a line showing the 1-ounce mark. The festival is fairly strict about pouring just an ounce, but the pours did get more liberal as the festival went on.

At GABF, you can’t bring in food unless you are wearing it, so you see a lot of people with homemade pretzel necklaces. There were also people wearing bagels, Funyuns and even bags of beef jerky!

The layout in the festival hall is divided up by region. I spent a lot of time hitting up the California breweries, including one of my favorites, Triple Rock Brewery & Alehouse.

One of the highlights for me? Getting to meet Charlie Papazian, who founded the Association of Brewers and the Great American Beer Festival and wrote The Complete Joy of Home Brewing.

Beers from San Francisco’s 21st Amendment Brewery, which is known for its cans and sweet designs, were pretty popular at GABF.

I’ve spent some time in the Silent Disco at Bonnaroo, so I skipped it at GABF. But there was always a long line to get in. The concept is this: it’s a disco where people dance to music via wireless headphones. Fun to watch from the outside.

San Diego’s Stone Brewing Co. didn’t win any medals for its beers. But the brewery’s booth, a popular destination at the festival, won the GABF Festival Flair Award for its awesome design.

One of the cooler sites at GABF — the 30-foot wall of T-shirts for sale. I picked up shirts from New Belgium Brewing and Boulder Beer.

The Beer Enthusiast Bookstore had a nice selection of homebrewing books and featured a full slate of book signings all three days, including authors Charlie Papazian, Garrett Oliver, John Palmer, Ray Daniels and Greg Koch.

Porter’s Pride, an imperial porter with chocolate, was brewed as part of a collaboration of Colorado breweries exclusively for the GABF awards ceremony.

Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper, one of the founders of the original Wynkoop Brewing Company brewpub, spoke at the awards ceremony.

I met up with a monkey in a spacesuit and Abraham Lincoln, who were representing 21st Amendment.

For homebrewers, one of the highlights of the Great American Beer Festival in Denver is the Pro-Am Competition.

Homebrewers from across the U.S. who are members of the American Homebrewers Association team up with professional brewers and scale up homebrew recipes on professional brewing systems. In its seventh year, the 2012 competition earlier this month saw a record number of entries, with 94 different beers. All the beers were served over the three days at GABF, and many of the homebrews were really fantastic.

And while that’s me in the photo above with the pitcher, I didn’t actually get to serve my beer at GABF. The photo, sadly, was staged before the doors opened. Only volunteers were allowed to serve beers at the homebrew booth, a policy I really don’t understand. I was told by the Pro-Am organizer that the presence of homebrewers serving their beers somehow overshadowed the other beers at the booth whose brewer could not make it to Denver — a really lame excuse. I was told I could stand in front of the booth, if I really wanted to.

One of the main reasons I like brewing for festivals is the opportunity to get immediate feedback — good and bad — from folks who try my beer. And what better setting to get feedback from beer lovers than the Great American Beer Festival? Making it all the way to Denver and being told I couldn’t serve my beer was a real disappointment. Brewers from professional breweries are encouraged to staff their booths and pour beer at the festival, and I hope the Pro-Am organizers re-think this policy for the Pro-Am booth. Homebrewers stand to learn a lot from those brief interactions with beer drinkers.

Anyway, I was thrilled to be at the festival. And to the winners below, cheers!